


time, wondrous time

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: All comfort no hurt, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mating Bond, Multi, Polyamory, basically three characters whom i love being happy together, if sjm won't do it i will, the ot3 of dreams - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28051272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: Elain wakes up in her favorite place in the world
Relationships: Elain Archeron & Azriel & Lucien Vanserra, Elain Archeron/Azriel, Elain Archeron/Lucien Vanserra
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	time, wondrous time

**Author's Note:**

> Sarah is not brave enough to resolve this love triangle in the most mutually beneficial way but I certainly am. Elain/Lucien/Azriel all the way and I will die on this hill. The whole fic sponsored by taylor swift's invisible string.

> _Time, curious time_
> 
> _Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs_
> 
> _Were there clues I didn't see?_
> 
> _And isn't it just so pretty to think_
> 
> _All along there was some_
> 
> _Invisible string_
> 
> _Tying you to me?_

* * *

Bright sunlight wakes Elain up, relentlessly tapping on her closed eyelids until she groans softly; making her clammy skin sizzle. She cannot escape from it, not sandwiched naked between two bodies the way she is. Flushed all-over, not an inch of her untouched; her cheek pressed to one male’s back, her legs tangled up with another’s. Some minuscule human part of her left weeping in shame, quietly, somewhere too deep inside her to bother with it.

Instead of hiding underneath thin sheets, she spits out a strand of hair stuck to her lower lip and begins grounding herself. It’s a slow, meticulous process, boring and alike to fishing out pebbles of a certain shade from a riverbed full of all kinds of rocks – but then, Elain’s well versed in it for now. Last night’s memories are a bit brighter, a bit more solid than all of the other images blooming in her head. There is laughter and auburn wine, the taste of it on her tongue, pomegranate juice dripping down her neck until it was licked off. Sand-colored marble kissing the bare soles of her feet when she was running through the corridors. Sheer silk swishing around her calves. Sweet ache coiling deep in her belly, between her slick thighs, the release hard enough to leave her feeling breathless, almost empty. There’s _snow falling in the Steppes,_ _chubby cheeks and round, silver-blue eyes of her mother_ -

Which don’t belong to yesterday, nor to any of the yesterdays before. Elain indulges herself though; let’s happiness and adoration fill her to the brim when she stays with this image for a bit longer. Those tiny fingers locked around a lock of her sister’s hair, Nesta’s cooing, a lullaby falling from her lips soft like a caress… It’s too nice, too delicious to not melt into this vision. 

But then - a rough hand slides up her thigh, fingers tracing the arch of her hipbone. Quiet laughter echoes when she trembles in response.

The future bursts like a soap bubble in the air and Elain falls into _here_ and _now_ painfully. She bares her throat to rest the back of her head on Azriel’s chest, smiling brightly with her eyes still firmly closed when he presses a kiss underneath her jaw.

‘’Good morning, Elain.’’ He whispers.

Before she can reply, a familiar warmth spills deep inside her belly – happiness and annoyance and pleasure mixed up in equal measure – and Lucien huffs, his voice muffled by the pillow:

‘’Why do you always have to wake up so early?’’

 _It’s the sun._ – Elain wants to say, want to sing-song into his ear until he fully awakens.- _It’s the sun and you are the one responsible for it._

But she’s too content, too comfy – so he blindly moves her hand from Lucien’s waist to his back, traces loopy _I love you-_ s on the bare skin with her fingertips as the bond inside her purrs like a cat in response. She can feel the silky strands of his hair brushing her knuckles and, for the thousandth time, she vows she’ll never let him cut them.

‘’Good morning.’’ She lets out an exhale. ‘’The sun’s telling you to rise and shine, my lord.’’

Azriel’s near-soundless laugh makes the bed shake a bit. It’s her favorite sound in the world – as beautiful as her future nephew’s shrieks of joy, as beautiful as Nesta’s singing voice.

As beautiful as Lucien’s fond, irritated groan.

‘’You two will pay me back for it, you know.’’

_Oh, she knows._

Lips and hands and cocks and wings and starlight underneath her eyelids; and moans and names and curses; in the daylight, in the moonlight; on the soft grass in her personal garden, bees buzzing around them as they make love, her knees scraped raw, teeth-marks on her neck, finger-shaped bruises on her thighs.

Before now – before _them_ , she didn’t know it’s even possible to feel such ecstasy, that sex can be like this. She doesn’t know how she was managing to live without it, how she did not crave this connection as one craves air every second, every heartbeat of her life.

‘’Is that a threat or promise, oh mighty High Lord?’’ Azriel snickers and Elain hides her face in Lucien’s hair to suppress her giggle. ‘’Be careful not to bite more than you can chew.’’

‘’I think we all know I can chew _plenty.’’_ Lucien shoots back, unflinchingly. Just enough bite in his tone that she squeezes her thighs together, that she feels Azriel’s hand climbing up the ladder of her ribs to brush her breast.

‘’Shush, both of you.’’ She whispers. ‘’It’s too early for that.’’

She can almost feel Lucien’s grin on her own lips.

‘’It’s never too early for that.’’

Like a cat waking up from a nap on a sunny afternoon, Elain slowly stretches her body- brushing, caressing, electing hisses and groans left and right in process, her bones and muscles re-forming from their half-molten state when she yawns.

And then she opens her eyes.

Lucien has turned to lay flat on his back, smiling at her in the light of the morning. There are pillow creases pressed on his cheek and she almost manages to reach out and touch them before Azriel throws his arms across her torso and beats her to it.

Darling, terrible Azriel, all the impossible contradictions of him. All brutality and goodness, quiet agony, dark humor. How delicately his hand caresses Lucien’s cheek. How delicately he touches her, every time, until she tells him not to – as if she was something holy and precious, and worth living for.

Life’s – life’s just this, being tangled up, tied into a knot with her mate and her beloved, her glorious, gorgeous _, grand_ lovers keeping her tethered, keeping her safe. Not for the first time, Elain feels a quiet glee at this thought – oh, let her sisters’ keep their mates and their great love stories full of heartbreak and pain, and impossible choices. Elain refused to go down this road. Elain refused impossible choices.

Elain, for the first time in her life, took a stand for something, refused to let the tide of fate to carry her from one place to another as if she was a petal on the wind.

And Elain is _adored._

And Elain _adores_ in return.

She wants to melt in-between them, slither underneath their ribs, bind them together for all eternity. Time is a river and she has long ago stopped drowning – now she’s swimming like a fish, no longer gasping for air, no longer cold and lost. The Cauldron’s power hums in her, this horrifyingly ancient beast Nesta has conquered and Elain has tamed: _you’ll go first, you’ll go first into this ageless dark, sweet doe._

_And how exactly does it matter?_

Lucien turns his face slightly to press his lips to the inside of Azriel’s hand. His own hand grips her waist to press her closer, closer; the three of them, hips pressing together, legs entangling, until their heartbeats sound like one perfect harmony in her ears.

_How does it matter, when they will have each other even when I’m gone?_

Her human life, brief and long evaporated like a puff of an exhale on a frost morning.

The centuries of love she got in exchange.

Feyre, her little sister always so nosy beyond measure, burning in curiosity when she asks, time and time again, _how does it even work,_ as if the three of them sat down around the business table the way Nesta sits with foreign traders to discuss terms and conditions; Mor biting the inside of her cheek not to laugh whenever Elain just shrugs in response. It’s not strange for her, loving them both, sharing and being shared. She has always had too much love inside her anyway, too much to know how to use it properly – wasting it on undeserving human men and pretty, petty things, this love without a purpose that she has now. Enough love for both of the best men she has ever met, both of them always so hungry for love, starved for it.

Elain has shed her humanity and all her human inhibitions the way silk dress slides to the marble floor, exposing skin and flesh begging to be touched – kept them on her and then got rid of them all at once, instantaneously.

Future rushes through her mind like a waterfall, all the good things: _roses blooming, stars falling, Feyre’s rounded belly and her son’s first word, Lucien’s hungry gaze, Cassian’s deep laughter and Nesta’s silver one, rows and endless rows of books in the thousand libraries all toppled over, Azriel sleeping peacefully by her side-_

Elain rests her head on Lucien’s shoulder and tangles her fingers in Azriel’s hair when he hides his face in the crook of her neck. The Day Court keeps them warm and safe when they drift back into dreams.

Oh, how truly _blessed_ she is. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, if you enjoyed the story - please leave me a comment. Please. You have no idea how much it means for me to hear that someone actually read and liked my work. Fanfiction writers depend on the comments in order to gather any kind of courage to keep pursuing writing - especially adult fanfiction writers like me, who need confirmation that what they're doing is worth actually ditching paying jobs and other Adult Responsibilities.  
> Have a nice day ;)


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